Identity Theft
Beat Intro
Voiceover
00:00 This is the Beat—a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest community policing topics facing our nation.
Interview
Debra Cohen McCullough
00:08 This is Debra Cohen McCullough with the U.S. Department of Justice COPS Office. With us today is Sam Imandoust, legal analyst at the Identity Theft Resource Center and Matt Davis, criminal identity theft victim advisor. We have a few questions for them today, and Sam and Matt are both here to discuss issues of identity theft. As we begin, can you tell us a little bit about the Identity Theft Resource Center?
Sam Imandoust
00:40 The Identity Theft Resource Center is primarily an outreach and victim assistance center. Essentially what we do is, victims of identity theft or people who are even curious about identity theft, worried that they may become a victim of identity theft, can call into our toll free number at 888.400.5530. What happens is they get assigned a personal victim advisor. Whether or not they are a victim or they’re worried that they might be a victim, this victim advisor will educate them on all the issues, on all the things that they need to worry about, and any acts that they have to take in order to clear their name. We’ll assist them from the very start to the very end. We don’t charge, we don’t cut off any time. Typically, the person will get the call back over a period of a few weeks or months and talk to the same victim advisor to resolve their case.
Additionally, we also just do a lot of outreach. We work with local police departments, we work on a national level, to just get people to understand what identity theft is. Primarily, the number one way to reduce identity theft is to educate, make aware, and empower individuals to protect themselves. Giving them the ability to minimize the risk of identity theft is really the best way to combat it on a global scale.
Deb
02:01 Identity theft can be a difficult crime for local law enforcement to police since many cases happen across jurisdictions and internationally. What types of resources are there for law enforcement to help with identity theft investigations?
Matt Davis
02:20 This is Matt. There’s a variety of resources available, and it depends on the case and it depends on what the goal of the particular law enforcement agency or officer is. For starters, a good place to always look is the attorney general’s office in their state or in their municipality. They have various resources; they’re already tied into the public pulse. Usually an attorney general’s office will have resources to assist the officer in the mitigation of any identity theft case.
At the federal level, the law enforcement agencies that usually handle identity theft issues are either the FBI or the Secret Service. Most of the time, those resources are used for larger identity theft rings. It’s usually determined by the dollar amount. Usually individual identity theft cases are not handled at the federal level.
The biggest thing that local law enforcement officers should understand about a victim who comes to them with an identity theft issue, especially one that transcends jurisdictions, is that the best way to help the victim isn’t to necessarily send a task force across the country to go arrest whoever this identity thief might be. If they want to participate in aiding with an arrest, they can certainly forward information, including an affidavit or a testimony from the witness or the victim to the jurisdiction where the crimes occurred. Mainly, the biggest thing they can do to assist a victim like this is to just give them an incident or a police report. That is one of the cornerstone pieces that any victim of identity theft needs in order to successfully dispute fraudulent charges, fraudulent accounts, things that arise as a result of their identity theft when the victim goes to the merchant or the bank or the creditor or whoever and holds up their hand and says, “This is identity theft. I don’t want to be held responsible for this account.” The primary piece of information that shows that creditor or bank or financial company, whatever it might be, that they are legitimate in their claim as a victim and not simply trying to skate on a bill is the presence of a police report. It shows them that this victim has taken the initiative and actually gone to their local law enforcement and held up their hand and made a complaint. That is the greatest aid—most of the time—that a police department can provide for the victim, is to just give them a police report that validates them as a victim of identity theft.
Deb
04:54 Why is identity theft an issue area within community policing, and how can community policing practices be used in identity theft cases?
Matt
05:06 This is Matt again. It’s an issue for community policing because it affects everyone in the community. Sure, it does transcend jurisdictional boundaries, but even if the victim is cleared of all the fraudulent charges, someone is going to usually eat that fraud. If there’s not a perpetrator to tie the fraudulent charges to, usually it will be the bank or the financial institution that improperly gave credit that ends up suffering the loss for that crime. So it is a community issue because everyone in the community stands to be impacted by it.
The biggest thing that police can do within the community is hold members of the community accountable to the standards that the community themselves have set. What I mean by that is, get in contact or work with the banks and the financial institutions that may have been defrauded in a particular case and see how that information might have been acquired, how that account might have been opened improperly. Was the bank operating according to their own privacy standards? If not, do they have any video? Do they have any written documents with the perp’s signature on them? The ability to share information across communities is going to be the primary way to bring these types of criminals to justice. It’s very chronic, can take on so many different forms, and can have so many potential victims that everybody needs to share information. The more information sharing that occurs, the easier it is to follow the paper trail to the true perpetrator.
Deb
06:40 Now, we know that identity theft does not only happen to adults. Can you talk a little bit about what child identity theft means and how the identity theft of children can lead to larger public safety issues?
Sam
06:56 Hi Debra, this is Sam. Often a child’s identity can be used and abused for years without the child knowing. That’s kind of what is unique to children—in many ways they are a blank slate in terms of credit, in terms of criminal records, in terms of drivers’ license—this can be a goldmine for identity thieves. Typically, when financial fraud is committed against children, credit reporting agencies don’t check for an age and assume that the first credit application in a child’s name is correct. What can happen is a child who is 2–3 years old is issued a social security number and an identity thief gets a hold of that social security number and then begins applying for credit in that name. They can successfully abuse that name for over a decade. What can happen is that a child coming of age, when they’re turning 17 or 18 and now beginning to apply for credit or for college loans or looking to rent somewhere, that’s when they find out about the years and years of the identity thief’s actions. This can pose a huge impact for children who are already in a precarious age, coming into the workforce, and they find out that all of this fraud has been going on in their name. This can take years to resolve, really putting that child back compared to other children who are now going to college, being able to rent, or take credit lines out. It really impacts their life.
In addition, foster children are at particular risk of ID theft because their social security number is often used as an identifier within the system and their information is all also exchanged much more often than a child that’s not in the foster system. When these children get out of the system, they may find themselves in the same position as other children with identity theft but often times they don’t have as many resources. That can make it particularly difficult, not only has a child leaving the foster system to be able to become independent and support themselves, now they have to deal with this fraud that’s been perpetrated against them for possibly over a decade. The longer that the identity theft has been going on, the harder it is to clear your name.
There’s many other ways that a child’s ID can be used as well. Undocumented workers will be able to use a child’s identity to be able to work validly in the country. Criminals will use a child’s social security number or even sometimes a birth certificate to create false documents and a false identity to avoid arrest in their own name. Sometimes they may commit crimes in the child’s name and so then the child will eventually be arrested and they have no idea what’s going on and why. Driver’s licenses—criminals can use a child’s identity to get driver’s licenses. There’s just a plethora of ways to be able to abuse a child. Typically a child is not looking after their identity the way an adult would. This isn’t financial or anything in that aspect, but there’s an emotional aspect that is very jarring for adults and it very much brings light to a shady criminal underworld that a lot of people don’t realize exists. This is particularly impacting on children. They’re going about their normal lives and now maybe police are involved, maybe they’re just getting their first job and they’re happy to start, and they find out all of this has been happening. It can be particularly jarring for them as well.
Deb
10:27 So what are some ways in which law enforcement can work with communities to educate them on safe practices to protect their identities?
Sam
10:37 This is Sam again. The number one thing is just outreach, outreach, outreach, the same thing that we do here at the ITRC. You can form partnerships with other members in the community. You can certainly form partnerships with the ITRC. We’re more than willing to work with you and partner up with our website. You can refer to us on your website so that people coming to the police station’s website can refer to us. We have a whole document catalog with dozens and dozens and dozens of fact solutions and all kinds of informational handouts for people. Additionally, we can give you literature and documents that you can put literally at the station desk that people coming in can grab and educate themselves.
Typically there’s community members in every community that will want to partner with the police and help solve this problem, because it affects all of us. Police stations and local police can work with the local DA’s office and their affiliate programs. They can work with banks and local businesses to educate them on best practices, and through them they can go ahead and educate the consumer individuals as well.
It’s really just getting the information out there and, as I said in the beginning, just getting the individual consumer to know what to do to protect themselves. In addition, they can work with businesses in teaching them how to protect themselves from data breaches. As we know, data breaches can be a large source of information for criminal identity thieves. As long as you’re just getting out in the community, letting anybody know who’s interested, which should be everybody. Once you explain the impact that identity theft has on all sectors of the economy and the neighborhood, most people will want to jump on in and get involved.
Deb
12:24 Sam and Matt, thank you so much for your time and expertise today. Where can listeners go to find out more information about the issues we talked about?
Matt
12:36 This is Matt again. The best way to find information, you can either reach us through our website or through our toll free number nationwide. The website is www.idtheftcenter.org and our toll free number is 888.400.5530.
Deb
12:55 Thank you both again.
Matt and Sam
12:57 Thank you Debra
Beat Exit
Voiceover:
12:59 The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice COPS Office. The COPS Office helps to keep our nation’s communities safe by giving grants to law enforcement agencies, developing community policing publications, developing partnerships, and solving problems.
Disclaimer:
13:16 The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or polices of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, products, or services should not be considered an endorsement by the authors or the U.S. Department of Justice. Rather, the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.
####END OF TRANSCRIPT####